The non-fiction book follows the true story of Henrietta Lacks, a tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge and used to further a number of medical breakthroughs, including the development of the polio vaccine.

Judging panel chair Clive Anderson commented: 'This is an engaging account of the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died in Baltimore nearly 60 years ago, and the immortal life of her cancer cells, which continue to replicate in research laboratories around the world to this day.'